PANA committee wants to grill Keith Schembri during May public hearing

The European Parliament’s committee investigating the Panama Papers leaks has requested the intervention of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat in an attempt to convince Keith Schembri to appear before a public hearing in Strasbourg.

Schembri, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, has already declined an invitation to appear before the committee during a visit to Malta last month, on the basis that he was not an elected official and that he holds “a position of trust in service of the government”.

Now, Muscat is being asked to use his “authority” in forcing Schembri to appear before the PANA committee.

“I would like to invite you to use your authority to ask him to cooperate with the PANA Committee by accepting an invitation to appear to a public hearing in Strasbourg on 18 May,” MEP Werner Langer said in a letter addressed to Muscat.

Langer, president of the committee of inquiry into money laundering, tax avoidance and tax evasion, reminded Muscat of how Schembri had refused to meet the committee in Malta… with the letter of refusal being delivered “on the street, by a post officer” shortly before the scheduled meeting.

Langer’s letter was published by Alternattiva Demokratika, with chairperson Arnold Cassola arguing that Schembri should stop “running away” from the MEPs.

“This is no April Fools'. It is shameful that the parliamentary investigative committee has to appeal to the Prime Minister to get him to force Schembri to go. People who have nothing to hide should not run away, as Keith Schembri has been doing for over a year,” Cassola said.

In the leaks of financial data from law firm Mossack Fonseca, it emerged that Schembri had set up an offshore trust in New Zealand in 2015, linked to a Panama company. According to the Mossack Fonseca documents, Schembri had already back in January 2011 used a Spanish adviser to set up a British Virgin Islands company, Colson Services Ltd.

In turning down the PANA committee’s invitation last month, Schembri published the audit carried out by Crowe Horwath of Panamanian company Tillgate Inc and Haast Trust.

In its report, audit firm Crowe Horwath said that the consolidated financial statements running from July 2015 to June 2016 confirmed that no trading activities were undertaken and Tillgate Inc held no bank accounts.

During the Panama Papers revelations it emerged that Nexia BT was in the process of opening a bank account in Dubai, whilst FPB Bank in Panama had refused to open an account.